


Blood Bitch

by brionypoisoned



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Eric Delano is a simp, F/M, Gerry inherited his gothness from his mom and everything else from his dad, Unhealthy Relationships, all characters other than Eric and Mary are background characters, punk Mary Keay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24375655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brionypoisoned/pseuds/brionypoisoned
Summary: My take on how Eric Delano met and fell in love with Mary Keay, as well as the events leading up to their marriage.
Relationships: Eric Delano/Mary Keay
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Blood Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> My timeline is almost definitely off in this, I set it from the early '70s to the early '80s SOLELY because I wanted Eric to be into post-punk music. 
> 
> The title is from the Cocteau Twins, off their album "Garlands" which you should listen to right now. 
> 
> Please do enjoy! I know this isn't exactly the most sought after pairing or characters so I will cherish every comment and kudos like the precious gift it is!

The first time Eric Delano encountered Mary Keay was three years into his, at that point, rather dull tenure at the Magnus Archives. He had been at his desk in their basement office, sitting under yellowish stained fluorescent lights and passive-aggressively typing out accession numbers that he knew Gertrude was going to ignore. A slim, pale woman in a tight fitting black mod dress strode into the office. 

"Ex-excuse me?" Eric asked, adjusting his bifocals as he stood up.

The woman was not beautiful, exactly. She had dark circles under her eyes and her face was gaunt, sunken in so much as to be skeletal. Her proportions were off, her arms too long, posture slightly hunched, her stance loping and awkward. But there was such a fire behind her eyes that when she fixed her gaze on Eric he felt warm. Her hair, dyed black, was cut into one of those stylish pixie cuts.

"I'd like to look at some files." She said. Her voice was raspy in a way that Eric found so appealing he had to blink a few times before he could register what she had said.

"I'm sorry, this isn't a research archive." Eric explained. "Our collections are institutional. For in-house use only." 

"I'm not going to take them out of the office." The woman said. 

"No, I'm sorry, what I mean is... you have to work here to look at them. There are forms... and, to be honest, even if you filled out one of the forms we'd probably need a few months to find what you're looking for, we're a bit of a mess." 

"You're new, aren't you?" The woman asked, tilting her head with a little smile. "You look a bit green." 

"I... I've been here for 3 years." Eric answered. 

"My mum used to work here." The woman said. She crossed her arms and glanced around the office with an appraising eye. "It hasn't changed much." She glanced down at the massive electric typewriter on his desk. "Those are new." 

"I asked for them." Eric admitted with a shrug. "I've been trying to bring us into the '70s." 

The woman laughed. A deep, unsettling, raspy noise. Eric found himself blushing.

"Good luck with that." She said, eyeing him quizzically. "You really don't know what this place is, do you?" 

"Excuse me?" Eric asked.

The woman began to fidget, picking at a loose thread at the sleeve of her dress. "Well, let me do you a favor." She said, shifting her weight. "What's your job title?"

"I'm... I'm an archival assistant."

"Wrong. You're fresh meat." She said, tone serious enough to make Eric shiver. "Keep that in mind, and you'll last longer." 

"W-what?" Eric asked.

"Good luck!" The woman turned to leave the room as casually as she had entered it. "If you don't believe me, try to quit!"

Eric stood on his own, staring at the door the woman had exited through, trying to put together what the hell had just happened.

~*~

Some conversations with Gertrude, Emma, and a few of the librarians cleared things up for him.

The striking woman was named Mary Keay, he learned, and she came to visit the institute once every few months. The librarians kept a photo of her behind the check-out desk so that they could make sure no one lent her any books. She'd snuck off with dozens of them over the years, and hadn't returned one.

Gertrude asked him a few somewhat prying questions about what exactly Mary Keay had said to him, which Eric mostly evaded. He told her that Mary had tried to look at some files, he'd told her she couldn't, and then she had left. He didn't mention anything about "fresh meat."

Eric stopped at his favorite record store and bought a few more albums on his way home from work that night, indulging in his usual form of stress relief. An entire wall of his flat was lined with well organized milk crates stuffed with albums, ranging in style from Sister Rosetta Tharpe to the Kinks. Once an electrical repairman had offered him 400 pounds for the whole collection, but Eric had just laughed at him. 

The night after meeting Mary he had a few beers, put on a new album by the Stooges and lay down on his couch. His wandering mind kept returning to her heavily made-up eyes and her strange, deep laugh. 

Book thief or no, he kicked himself for not getting her number. 

~*~

Eric didn't give the encounter much more thought until about a year later.

He'd applied on the off-chance to a position at the National Archives. The job paid better and was a better fit for his education; he'd never wanted to spend his life as an Archival Assistant, even with the interesting statements he sometimes came across at the Magnus Archives.

The interview had gone quite well, and later that evening a representative from the National Archives phoned him up and offered him the job.

Eric Delano, filled with delight and anticipation, heard himself answering "No" to his dream job, and, quite beyond his control, slamming the phone back down in an abominably rude fashion. 

He stared at his own hand on the receiver for a solid minute, trying to understand what had just happened.

"If you don't believe me, try to quit!" Mary had laughed over her shoulder at him, as she swept out of the archives office. 

"What the fuck?" He whispered.

~*~

Eric found himself shaking with anger in a meeting with Gertrude the next day, sitting across from her in her cramped, dim office.

"I'm telling you... something strange happened. I was going to say yes. I wanted to say yes."

"You lost your nerve at the last minute." Gertrude said with a shrug. She was wearing a sea green and grey striped turtleneck, and her auburn hair was pulled up into a high ponytail. "It happens all the time. To the best of us. It certainly wasn't _supernatural_..." 

"We WORK in an INSTITUTE for the supernatural." Eric snapped. It took a lot for Eric to snap, and Gertrude had worked with him for long enough to be aware of that. She met his irritated expression with unwavering coolness.

"I'm sorry that you're upset. But I hope you'll come to realize that we value your work here at the archives and you made the right decision to stay." 

Eric wanted to protest that he hadn't DECIDED anything, but he realized under Gertrude's steely gaze that this conversation was over. He gave a curt nod and left the office, hands stuffed in his pockets, too frustrated to speak. If something was up here, and he knew, now, that something was, Gertrude had just shown that she was going to be of no help.

~*~

It was another year before he saw Mary Keay again. Eric was getting a few files together before leaving on one of his "research trips," the kind that, these days, always seemed to end up with him breaking and entering into someone's house at Gertude's behest, when Mary Keay stepped into the office. Her style had changed somewhat. Her hair, still dyed black, was now bleached at the ends and styled up into spikes in places. Her eye makeup had advanced beyond outlining her actual eyes and had turned into something more creative. She looked like she hung out with Sid Vicious on weekends.

"You again!" She said as she walked in, looking Eric up and down. "Mr. Cannon Fodder. You try to quit yet?" She asked. 

"Why can't I?" Eric asked, dropping his files onto his desk and trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.

"It won't let you." Mary said, tone as casual as if they were discussing the weather. "Not till you're dead." 

"What won't?" Eric asked.

"MARY!" Gertrude hissed, opening her office door. "Leave my assistants alone!" 

Mary laughed at Gertrude's irritation and gave Eric a wink, which almost made his heart stop.

"Take care, _assistant._ " She said. "It's scary out there." And with that she stepped into Gertrude's office. A few years ago Eric would have been surprised that Gertrude had a meeting with a person who had been banned from the library for theft. Now it didn't come as much of a shock.

~*~

A few months later Mary Keay walked up to Eric in the archival office and informed him, confidently and with great clarity, that he would be taking her to dinner. He couldn't help but nod, too stunned to speak. It wasn't as though he hadn't thought about it, ever since they'd first met. He might even have been thrilled, if the whole thing hadn't all taken place RIGHT in front of Emma and Fiona. 

Fiona spilled over with enthusiastic chatter the second Mary left the office.

"Where are you going to go? How long have you known her? Have you taken her out before? VERY bold of her to just tell you you were taking her to dinner! Girls these days! Where do they get the nerve? Are you going to pick her up? Do you think she's one of those new women who will pay for herself? Mind you... she LOOKS like she's one of those new women. That hair! And that makeup!" 

"Please keep this to yourself." Eric pleaded, adjusting his collar (he'd stopped wearing ties to work some time ago—no one had yet said anything). "Gertrude won't care for this at all..."

"I wasn't going to tell Gertrude, dearie, don't worry." Fiona promised with a grin. "Emma! Promise not to tell Gertrude!"

Emma didn't respond with words, merely a long suffering sigh and an expression of exhausted boredom. She absently brushed a cobweb off the of the underside of her desk lamp.

Eric adjusted his glasses. 

"Have you taken her out before?" Fiona asked.

"NO, Fiona." Eric muttered. "This is the first time."

"You'd better buy her flowers then." Fiona said. "She'll like that. I can't imagine those punky girls get flowers very often." 

"Thank you for the advice." Eric answered, and began to type as loudly as he could to drown his coworker out. He liked Fiona well enough, and he knew she didn't mean any harm, but it was like working with a nosy auntie sometimes. 

~*~

Eric stood in the street outside of Pinhole books trying to work up the nerve to knock on the door. He had spent nearly 30 minutes choosing an outfit. Mary was very clearly the sort of girl who purposely tore holes in her tights, which would lead him to believe that a t-shirt and jeans ought to be fine, but his mother's voice echoed in his head that no decent man would take a girl out in anything less formal than a suit. 

In the end he went with his gut and wore a plain black t-shirt and jeans. His hair was getting a bit long, feathering out over his ears in a way that, once again, his mother would abhor. He didn't look "cool," exactly, the thick glass of his bifocals combined with his general demeanor killed any fashion attempt he ever made, but he at least felt honest. Mary answered the door wearing nearly exactly the same thing as him, only her t-shirt was a bit more ripped up and she had on blue-tinted lipstick.

Eric thanked a higher power that he hadn't worn a suit.

"Where are we going, then?" Mary asked.

"I don't know. I thought you might tell me." Eric said.

They ended up at a chip shop, taking their salty and vinegar-drenched fried fish to go. They ate their meals with their hands while sitting on a bench by the Thames. Eric's mother was probably rolling in her grave. It was, without question, the most fun he'd ever had on a date.

"Mary." Eric said, after throwing away their wrappers and rejoining her on the bench. "Is the archive... evil?"

Mary cackled. 

"I think you know the answer to that, Eric. You've got to. At this point." 

Eric nodded as he looked out at the night-black water of the Thames. The crests of small waves glinted with brief reflections of the street lights. 

"I don't know what Gertrude's playing at by keeping us in the dark." 

"The dark's something different." Mary said, sounding almost bored. "Let's just say Gertrude's keeping an eye on you." She let out her usual raspy laugh. 

Eric smiled helplessly.

"I've got no bloody idea what you're doing." He admitted. "If this is all some game to you, or something." 

"Oh no, Eric." Mary took Eric's hand and gripped it tightly. Her fingers were warm, hot, almost, and her stare was intense. "It's not a game."

Eric could feel her eyes on him at that point, and was physically aware of the rush of his blood in his veins. 

_Great, she's a ruddy vampire._ He thought, but he couldn't bring himself to care. If he was about to get drained by some creature of the night, it might as well be Mary. 

He pulled her towards him and kissed her on the lips. She tasted warm and coppery, like... well, like blood. He didn't mind it though, and when she didn't pull away or murder him or something, he kissed her again. 

"Get a job, you dirty punks!" Scolded an old man in a brown suit, walking briskly past with a disappointed shake of his head.

Eric actually pulled back from the kiss, stunned.

"Christ, I wish I DIDN'T have a job." He muttered.

Mary laughed again and buried her face in his shoulder.

~*~

The harsh ring of his telephone jolted Eric out of a light, tense sleep, at about 2 in the morning. He could feel his heart pounding in his throat as he dragged himself out of bed and answered the phone, still blind in the pitch darkness of his flat.

"Eric." Gertrude said, shattering any hopes he may have had about the caller being Mary. "Adelard needs you. Get to Vauxhall bridge as soon as you can." 

"He... what?"

"It is vital that you do as I say. Get up and get to the bridge, I won't be there in time." 

"Gertrude... it's..."

"I CANNOT HOLD YOUR HAND THROUGH THIS ERIC, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. Go." Eric heard a sharp click and then a ringtone. 

He turned on the lights and looked for his trousers.

About a half hour later Eric found himself in a bracing wind standing alone under a streetlight at Vauxhall bridge. He stood there shivering for nearly 20 minutes before a car squealed to a halt in front of him and Adelard Dekker gestured for him to get inside. He sped off almost before Eric had a chance to fully shut the door behind him. Adelard was, if anything, less forthcoming about what they were doing than Gertrude had been. 

"Stay here." Adelard hissed, slamming on the brakes in a pitch dark alleyway between two buildings. He was out and gone before Eric had a chance to ask what the fuck he was meant to be doing. 

Eric couldn't tell you how long he waited in the car. It couldn't have been more than a quarter of an hour but it felt like two hundred years. The cold leeched into his skin, he flinched at every noise or movement from outside the car, and it was so suffocatingly dark in the shadows that he couldn't begin to make out what was going on.

Adelard finally returned to the car, struggling to maneuver a massive box. Eric didn't want to describe it as coffin shaped but the box was certainly large enough to fit a full grown human. Adelard was pressing some kind of copper medallion against the wood of the box, which made it even more difficult for him to carry the heavy looking thing. He kicked at Eric's door and gestured for help.

"Keep this medallion on the box." Adelard instructed, as Eric took one side of the thing. "The metal must stay against the wood at all times." 

"I... ok?" Eric took over pressing the copper medallion to the box (the metal felt bitter cold on his fingers), and helped Adelard wrangle it into the backseat. Eric lumbered in along with it, in order to keep the medallion where it should be.

Adelard got back into the driver's seat, and they sped off again, back towards the Thames.

"Is there... what's in here?" Eric asked, struggling to find a tolerable position from where he was crammed in the backseat.

"Something dangerous." Adelard Dekker said. "That's all you need to know." 

"Is it?" Eric asked. "Is it all I need to know? Because I feel like I might fucking benefit from a bit more FUCKING INFORMATION." 

Adelard didn't even turn around, he just drove silently the rest of the way, leaving Eric to stew. When they got to the Thames Eric once again helped him wrangle the box out of the vehicle, making sure the keep the medallion where it needed to be. Dekker's intentions could not be more clear as had Eric help him heave the box up to the railing, balancing tenuously above the water.

"I'll take that, now." Adelard took the medallion from Eric's grasp, making sure to hold it against the wood, leaving Eric struggling to keep his end of the box up. The wood was rough cut, and Eric's hands stung from dozens of splinters. 

"At the count of three we drop it."

"Adelard, is there someone in here?" Eric asked, voice shrill, panicked.

"One... Two... THREE!" And with that Adelard and Eric pitched the box over the railing. As soon as the copper medallion left the wood, an anguished, muffled, painfully human shriek came from the box, ringing out only briefly before the whole thing was swallowed by the splash of murky water.

"There was someone in there!" Eric whispered, shaking, staring at the rapidly disappearing ripples in the water below, "That was a person!" 

"That was a good deed we both just did." Adelard said, tone low. "You keep that in mind." 

With that Adelard went back to his car. Eric stood alone and shivering by the railing, watching as the other man drove off. Dekker didn't even turn around. 

Eric didn't go home that night.

At nearly 4 in the morning, Eric stood outside Mary Keay's flat, pounding his fist on the door loud enough to rattle the hinges.

Mary looked irritated when she answered, dark circles under her eyes from where she hadn't been able to remove all of her makeup, and her hair sticking out all over the place. She snickered as she took in the trembling Eric, his hands still red and splintered from carrying the box, hair windswept, shirt buttoned wrong from his rush to get ready in the darkness.

"What've they put you up to now?" She asked.

"I think I've just killed someone." Eric said.

"You think?" Mary asked, head tilted.

"They won't tell me." Eric said.

"Ah. That's probably a yes, then."

Eric took a deep, shaky breath at that. Before he could think long enough about it to second guess himself, he pulled Mary in roughly and pressed his lips against hers. He could feel her smiling as he did it, and he kissed harder to try to make her stop. To make her feel as intensely as he did, at that moment.

When he finally eased up Mary brushed her lips against his ear.

"You'd better come in, I suppose." She whispered in her raspiest tone. He didn't have to be asked twice.

~*~

From then on Eric spent every spare moment with Mary. Dutiful Emma might stay at work late researching something for Gertrude, but his eye would be on the clock starting at about four pm and he was rarely at his desk at five. He nicked rare books auction catalogs from the mail room and brought them to Mary as gifts, so she could have first dibs on whatever ancient book of the occult was up for sale this month. 

Most nights he'd come home to his flat to find Mary sitting cross-legged on the floor, thumbing through his record collection and getting them all out of order while drinking a bottle of bitters. He'd slip into Pinhole books over his lunch breaks, cornering Mary between the bookshelves and running his hand up underneath her skirt until she'd laugh and put the "Back in 20 minutes" sign on the door.

He still saw her at the institute from time to time, always without warning, frequently attending some kind of clandestine meeting with Gertrude. He knew Mary wasn't telling him the full truth about what exactly she did for the institute, but he found he didn't care. Mary was his. By some miracle, she'd turned her intense, cutting gaze on him and found something desirable there. 

Mary brought up marriage first, which took Eric by surprise. Not that she would be the one to ask—she had taken the lead in just about every other aspect of their relationship—she just didn't strike him as the type of person who would want a white wedding. Later, as they planned the ritual, It began to make more sense. For all of her goth/punk aesthetic, there was a kind of old-fashionedness about Mary, a dedication to tradition and precedent. She had an almost religious fervor for the supernatural, and he supposed there must be some ancient traditional value at play as they discussed the structure of the ceremony.

In a weird power play, James Wright congratulated Eric on his engagement at a staff meeting, despite Eric not having told him or anyone about it. Eric blushed and fumbled his 'thank yous' as colleagues from the library patted his back and made bawdy, regressive jokes about the old ball and chain. Eric got no congratulations from Gertrude, however. She just sat with the corner of her mouth turned down in a way that Eric knew to be dangerous. He avoided eye contact.

Michael, the new archival assistant who was all feathered hair, bell-bottoms, and bright smiles, was dead set on throwing Eric a stag do. Eric knew Michael didn't mean any harm, but he almost couldn't imagine anything worse. It wasn't Michael's fault that he was Fiona's replacement, Fiona, whose disappearance everyone at the archive seemed to have agreed to silently ignore. But still, every time Eric looked at Michael all he could feel was a lead weight of guilt and shame.

But Michael, for all of his cheeriness, was harder to put off than Eric had anticipated. And so it came to be that Eric found himself sitting at a pub with James Wright, Michael Shelley, and the new shelver whose name was Evan or something. Ellis, maybe? In any case, he looked like a rat bastard and Eric would honestly prefer to throw himself in front of traffic than sit in this pub with this company for another ten minutes.

"To Eric and Mary!" Michael said, raising his pint glass, "Many years of happiness to you both!" 

Eric was about to drink but James Wright held up his pint glass, interrupting with another toast.

"Here’s to a long life and a happy one, a quick death and a happy one, a good girl and a pretty one, a cold bottle and another one!" James Wright boomed in a voice that must have interrupted conversations well on the other side of the pub.

"What... what the hell?" Eric blushed deep red as Michael let out a peal of his odd, endearing, high pitched laughter. 

"Toasts used to mean something!" Wright complained, taking a deep draught of his beer. "Nobody does any good toasts anymore."

"When was that one from? 1795?" the shelver asked, raising an impudent eyebrow. 

"A bit later than that, Elias." Wright answered, finally reminding Eric of the little twerp's name. 

"Which is Mary, Eric?" Michael asked, smiling pleasantly. "A good girl or a pretty one?" 

Eric sighed. 

"I don't think anyone would describe Mary as _good._ " He admitted. 

"So pretty, then?" Michael laughed. 

"It's tough to tell under all that makeup." Elias said, taking another sip of beer.

"Elias! Behave!" Michael snapped at him. "I'm sorry Eric." Michael leaned in conspiratorially, "I don't think Elias is exactly the best judge of female beauty."

"Look who's talking." Elias mumbled. Eric considered, once again, just smashing his pint glass into his own face and prematurely ending the evening for eveyone. 

"So what would you like as a wedding gift, Eric? The institute wants to pitch in for something for the happy couple." Wright said, thankfully changing the topic.

Eric looked the director of the Magnus Institute directly in the eye.

"You could let me quit." Eric said. "Or fire me." 

Elias and Michael glanced at one another in confusion at Eric's suggestions, but Eric kept his gaze fixed directly on Wright. Wright just smiled, an unshakeable smugness radiating off of him. 

"Oh, I'm afraid that's not possible Eric. We at the institute value your work far too much to let you go so easily." 

Eric fumed, taking another sip from his beer. It was a lie and all of them knew it. Unless Gertrude asked him to do something to protect one of his colleagues or help a statement giver, Eric hadn't done anything productive at work in years. 

Michael put on another one of his smiles, the kind intended to force a situation back into cheeriness rather than reflect a cheerful situation.

"I suppose you'll have to put off being a house-husband for Mary for a few more years then!" Michael joked. 

"God, that's the fucking dream, isn't it?" Eric admitted.

~*~

Eric Delano and Mary Keay were married, with absolute blatant disregard for logic, reason, and taste, in an actual church.

The pews were very nearly empty, and the few people who actually attended were, for the most part, strangers to Eric. He recognized Gertrude, of course, sitting as far back in the church as possible dressed in corduroys and a cardigan, scribbling notes for some reason in a little notebook.

A large family of pale people, uniformly well dressed and miserable looking, all sat together in one pew looking oddly distant from one another. The children were either unnaturally quiet or elbowing and biting their neighbors. They looked far too wealthy to be part of Mary's inner circle, but he assumed that must be the case.

A rather shriveled looking old man in a gaudy suit sat in the second row. As Eric walked past him to take his place at the altar he felt a brief but intense sensation of vertigo that almost made him lose his footing. He glanced up as he righted himself, and the man gave him a wink. 

Eric noticed that the church seemed to be darker on the day of his wedding than he remembered it being. The few electric lights kept flickering, which was odd, and even the stained glass windows seemed more clouded over than they had during the rehearsal.

Michael, Emma, Elias, and James Wright all showed up together, sliding in next to a clearly annoyed Gertrude. Eric would rather not have invited them at all, but if Mary was going to have her church wedding there really wasn't any way out of it.

Eric's family was mostly dead, and he'd lost touch with all of his college friends. His only living family was a great aunt and uncle who sat on his side of the church looking very confused but supportive. He gave them a little wave from the front of the church, and his great uncle lifted up a massive Nikon camera to take a photo with blinding flash. 

When the ceremony began a deep quiet fell across the church. The organist began to play "Here Comes the Bride," (neither Eric or Mary had felt like putting much effort into the ceremony, so they went pretty much by the book,) and Mary Keay made her entrance.

She had decided on a mini-dress for her wedding gown. Black, short, and simple, it was a direct fuck-you to Princess Diana's recent off-white silk puffy wedding dress extravaganza. It hung off of Mary's slim, wiry figure in a way that made Eric gasp, and as soon as he laid eyes on her they were the only two people in the room. For all he cared they were the only two people on the planet. 

Mary wore a black veil which hung over her face like a statue of an ancient mourner, and when she finally made it to the altar Eric lifted it with trembling fingers.

When the vicar asked if anyone knew of a reason these two should not be wed, Gertrude stood up and left. Mary actually cackled out loud at that, and Eric just shrugged. 

After a brief and to the point service, the vicar finally reached the pivotal moment. Eric could have cried when the man asked if he would take Mary as his lawfully married wife, but he managed to whisper an audible "I do." Mary's eyes flashed with something like triumph when she said the same.

Eric kissed the bride with enthusiasm. Mary gently touched his neck as he kissed her deeply, to the somewhat dim cheers and applause of the small crowd. When he pulled back, lips tasting, as they usually did after kissing Mary, of blood, she looked him right in the eyes.

"Got you." She said, stroking a long black fingernail down his cheek. 

He didn't know enough then to even be frightened.


End file.
